


small wonder

by wildewoman_22



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Lesbian AU, Light Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy, soft wives being soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26306992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildewoman_22/pseuds/wildewoman_22
Summary: “I thought – I mean, I- I think about it, too.”She knew where this was going, she knew her wife.“I know,” whispered Jan, breathless. She moved as close to her wife as she could, their lips nearly touching. “I know.”She had to say it. Jackie needed to hear her say it.“I want to have a baby with you.”Jan and Jackie await a newcomer.
Relationships: Jackie Cox/Jan Sport
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	small wonder

**Author's Note:**

> Have some soft lesbians just bc I'm feeling a type of way. I didn't really proofread this, so apologies for spelling/grammar errors! Take care and wash your hands.

It began on a frigid evening, wind chapping Jackie’s cheeks - early winter in New York.

She gripped Jan’s gloved hand in hers as they stumbled the three city blocks to their apartment from the dinner party they’d just attended, hosted by one of Jackie’s colleagues; a fellow doctor from the private practice she’d spent the past five years working at. They were giggly; drunk on white wine, and when Jan smirked at her and suddenly broke off into a sprint as they rounded onto their street, it reminded Jackie of the drunken nights they’d shared in college a decade before.

They’d met during senior year of undergrad, during which biology major Jackie hadn’t spent much time on extracurriculars. Jan, however, had worked off the stress of working towards a double major in music and psychology by joining (and becoming the star of) the school’s track team.

They crossed paths for the first time on the second floor of the campus library. Jan had been searching for a book in the stacks, scanning the titles so intently that she’d missed where she’d been walking, tripping over a cord. When she got her bearings, a girl with glossy curls and wide dark eyes was staring back at her, lips pressed together like she wanted to laugh. She’d gestured to the cord on the floor.

 _Um, could you plug my computer back in?_ Jackie had asked sheepishly. She’d pushed up her glasses with a finger, twin roses blooming prettily on her cheeks. It had been enough to make Jan introduce herself.

The first night they’d slept together after weeks of dancing around it, Jackie had downed two shots of tequila and finally felt brave enough to challenge Jan to take her home.

Jan’s eyes had widened, she’d smiled shyly and pressed herself to Jackie, kissing her filthily, all the while slipping off her heels. _Race you,_ Jan had whispered in her ear as she broke the kiss, sprinting barefoot across the pavement, her laugh and sunshine hair streaming behind her and ringing in Jackie’s dazed ears.

Jackie would confess to Jan later that that moment was when she’d known she was in love with her.

Now, six years married, Jackie caught up to Jan outside the front door of their building, their breaths coming in white puffs in the cold night air.

“I hate you,” she huffed, out of breath, wrapping her arm around Jan’s waist. Jan grinned and pecked her on the cheek.

Their apartment was modest but beautiful, fourth-floor in a red-bricked building, purchased together after Jan had gotten a job teaching music theory at an upscale private school. They pottered around, still tipsy, turning off lights and getting ready for bed.

“So, what do you think of your new best friend?” Jan asked sleepily as Jackie finally slipped under the sheets beside her.

Their party hosts, Jackie’s coworker Dr. Preston and his wife, had teased them as they were leaving – their five-year-old daughter Maggie had been immediately enamoured with Jackie and they were sure Maggie would be begging for her to come back and play.

“Maggie’s so cute,” Jackie said. “She might be the one kid in the world nerdier than I was.”

She’d kept the little sandy-haired girl occupied while her parents were busy, ending up next to her on the couch watching one of the _Star Wars_ sequels playing on TV while dinner was being plated.

Mrs. Preston had urged Maggie to ‘ _leave their guest alone’_ but Jackie had brushed them off with a smile. They’d had an animated conversation about BB-8; Maggie chattering away while Jackie nodded along with wide eyes like she’d never heard anything more important.

“Aw, babe, you finally found your nerd soulmate.” Jan turned off the lamp and cuddled into Jackie’s side.

“It only took me thirty-two years,” Jackie replied, shifting her body to fully face her wife.

They were quiet for a few moments, arms around each other, Jackie pressing kisses into Jan’s hairline, cold feet tangled together underneath the covers.

“I was watching you guys, you and Maggie, when you were on the couch,” Jan whispered suddenly, fragile in the silence.

There was a note of something important in her voice, her body tensing a little in Jackie’s grasp. “I just, it– it was really sweet.”

Jackie sucked in a breath. The air in their bedroom was different than a few moments before; Jackie could feel it, charged, delicate, and she cradled it to her as carefully as she did her wife. She could feel Jan’s heart beating, fluttery and insistent, against her own.

“Yeah?” Jackie breathed.

“You were so good with her, Jacks.”

“I didn’t even do anything, really,” Jackie laughed quietly. “I just let her talk at me.”

"No, no, it – you made her laugh, you’re patient, you were actually _listening_ to her, I don’t know…”

Jan pulled back to look Jackie in the eyes, worrying her lip between her teeth. Her entire energy had shifted, her eyes glinting in the dim light of their bedroom as she searched Jackie’s face.

Jackie realized that her wife was nervous. She looked _terrified._ She looked like she might cry.

“Jan?”

“I was watching you on the couch, and I keep looking over and there’s _you_ with this little girl, this little _blonde_ girl-" here Jan grabbed at a lock of her own blonde hair – “and you’re talking to her like she’s a _person_ , and you didn’t see how she _looked at you,_ Jacks, and I just- I can’t stop thinking about it,” Jan cut off her rambling with a tiny hiccup of a sob.

Jackie’s heart leapt into her throat, her hands shaking. She leaned over to switch the lamp on her bedside table, yellow light bathing the room. There were tears streaming down Jan’s face, but her eyes were bright and wistful.

" _Babe,”_ Jackie rasped, grabbing one of Jan’s hands in both of her own, surprised to hear her own voice thick with tears. “I thought – I mean, I- I think about it, too.”

She knew where this was going, she knew her wife – she _knew._

“I know,” whispered Jan, breathless. She moved as close to her wife as she could, their lips nearly touching. “I know.”

She had to say it. Jackie needed to hear her say it.

“I want to have a baby with you.”

Jackie burst out into wet laughter, grabbing Jan, kissing her face, hands, wherever she could reach. “Me too,” she cried. “Yes. Yes.”

* * *

Jan threw herself back against the couch dramatically, nearly knocking Jackie out from where she was perched behind Jan, intermittently holding back her hair as they watched a movie.

Well, _tried_ to watch a movie. Jan was focusing all her energy on not puking between the moments of sporadic dry-heaving into the bowl Jackie had set on the coffee table.

“Sorry. This is fucking disgusting.” Jan said darkly, spitting and scrubbing at her mouth with a tissue.

“It’s fine, baby,” Jackie mumbled, brushing sweaty blonde tendrils away from the nape of Jan’s neck. Jan just slumped against her and whimpered.

Jackie stood to rinse Jan’s sick bowl and brought her back a glass of ginger ale. Jan sipped cautiously, both women praying she could keep it down.

Jackie had no idea who the liar was that decided to call it morning sickness - Jan had been finding herself nauseous and retching all hours of the day, her head constantly pounding. Jackie tried her best not to hover (‘ _it’s okay, gorg, everyone says this part is gonna end soon and I’ll be feeling better’_ ), but seeing her pregnant wife so miserable set her anxiety flaring.

Her _pregnant wife_. Even thinking those words made her heart race.

Jan was nearly four months along, the little lump in her belly growing every day. They’d been nervous from the beginning, Jan terrified of each slight pain or new sensation in her body and Jackie squeezing her hand beside her as they white-knuckled their way through the first trimester. The whole thing was so fragile, almost sacred.

Now, though, they were getting ready to finally announce their news after keeping it secret for so long. Jackie wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but there was a little part of her that would miss that feeling; of being in public and thrilling to the knowledge that Jan was doing something important, of watching every tiny change in her body and knowing that it was _her_ baby – _their_ baby – that was changing her like that.

Jan finished her drink and gingerly laid her head down in Jackie’s lap, cheeks spotted pink.

“Better?” Jackie asked.

“A little,” was Jan’s quavery response.

“This puking stuff is beyond old. I'm so over it.” She pouted, sniffling. “I miss my coffee. I just want a damn cocktail. I miss sex without having to stop so I can barf. I just want to feel like a person again.”

“I know, honey, I know.” Jackie started to comb her fingers through Jan’s hair, gentle near the roots. Rubbing tiny, soothing circles into her temple.

Jan was worked up, but she had chosen this. In a sense, they’d both chosen this – they’d spoken about it, they would each take a turn. _We’ll have two,_ Jackie had said, _because they each need a friend_ , and Jan had laughed, cried, and held her tighter: _Okay, but I’m going first._

“This movie’s so stupid,” Jackie murmured. Jan hummed in agreement, eyes half-closed. She looked beyond exhausted, purple shadows blooming beneath her eyes, her skin dull and dry. Not glowing in any sense of the word.

To Jackie, she had never been more beautiful.

Jan reached up to thread their fingers together, bringing their joined hands down to the slight roundness of her lower belly. She pressed the flat of Jackie’s palm to her skin.

“Thanks for putting up with me,” she whispered apologetically.

“Love you, Jannifer,” said Jackie, leaning to kiss her cheek. “We’ll be having barf-free sex before you know it.”

“Oh, just wait,” said Jan through a yawn. “I’ll wear you out.”

* * *

The months ticked by, the seasons changed, Jan’s sickness went away like she’d been promised. The swell of her belly rounded out, her face fuller, tired yet shining. Jackie’s been letting her hair grow long enough for Jan to wind the curls around her fingers, for Jan to hold her head close when she leans to talk softly to the baby.

And now, here they were, almost a month away from meeting their son.

Their son _._ Jackie was going to have a _son_.

She could feel her nerves ratcheting up with each week that passed, the more Jan grew, but she was trying her absolute best to keep it together. Jan, for her part, had taken things in stride. She’d rolled with the punches of her rollercoaster hormones, her body being taken over by someone else, and a baby who seemed to delight in kicking her in the ribs. Jackie loved to tease that _of course_ Jan would give birth to a caffeine pill.

They were terrified and overjoyed. They were ready.

Jackie was in the kitchen, flipping through the mail one morning when she came across a familiar yellow envelope. Her own handwriting. Her parents’ address.

A red stamp across it – _Return to Sender._

It was stupid – Jackie knew she’d been foolish. Her parents were strict, deeply traditional Persian parents, who had practically disowned their only daughter when she came out as a lesbian her junior year of college. But when Jackie thought she might die from their rejection, she’d survived – she’d grown, she’d propped herself up with friends and she’d fallen in _love_ with herself for the first time in her life. So she’d tried to let them go.

Communication with her parents following her coming out was sparse; the annual Christmas phone call, clinical and disinterested. Checking to be sure that Jacqueline was at least alive, breathing, presumably not in a crack den.

She’d invited her parents to her wedding. They hadn’t come. It had stung, deeply, but she had her own family now. She had Jan.

But now that she was about to become a parent herself, Jackie had often found herself thinking of her mother: how, when Jackie was a little girl, she used to promise Jackie that no matter what, she would be around to see her babies. She used to punctuate everything with _you’ll know this feeling when you’re a mother yourself, Jacqueline._ Jackie thought maybe they would like to know they were about to have a grandson. Maybe this would soften them, thaw them out towards her. They’d never even met Jan, the woman their daughter had spent the past decade of her life with, but maybe this baby could be the olive branch.

Her reasoning was also fuelled a bit by insecurity; she was commonly mistaken by strangers for Jan’s sister, friend, or on one awkward occasion, her mother. Public outings, older ladies pawing at Jan’s bump, asking how her husband was handling things while Jackie corrected them through clenched teeth, hand flexing at the small of Jan’s back. Some part of her deep down needed this validation.

So, Jackie had sent her parents a card with the most recent ultrasound photo tucked inside. She’d even used a sticker shaped like a baby’s rattle to seal the envelope, trying to make the contents obvious.

They hadn’t even opened it.

Jackie felt a thread in her heart snap. It was just too much in that moment. She’d been feeling frayed at the ends lately; staying up with Jan when the baby’s weight on her hips kept her awake, the lack of sleep magnifying her niggling anxiety about something going wrong with the birth, something happening to her wife or son or both. She knew, rationally, that these feelings were normal, and she knew that whatever nerves she was feeling Jan would be experiencing tenfold.

Jackie was so disconnected she didn’t hear Jan enter shuffling from their bedroom, a hand braced on her back. “Morning, babe,” she yawned.

“You okay?” she asked when there was no response. Jan took in the tense line of her wife’s shoulders. She came closer and saw what Jackie was clutching – the envelope with her parents’ names and address.

_Fuck._

“Jackie. Baby,” Jan said softly, carefully lowering herself into the chair next to Jackie, putting a hand on her wrist.

Jackie was staring blankly ahead at nothing; clenching her jaw so hard Jan thought her teeth might break. Her breath was coming ragged through her nose. She didn’t seem to register Jan’s presence at all.

“Jacks, look at me.” Jan could feel herself starting to cry. She hadn’t seen Jackie get bad like this in a long time. “Look at me, please. Please, baby.”

Jackie did. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know why I did it. I thought maybe – maybe my mom, I could change her mind.” She shook her head, her voice getting more manic as she spoke.

“They don’t care. This fucking sticker, they _knew_ what was in here, they still don’t fucking care, Jan! And I’m – I’m an adult, I’m about to have my own family, and I hate that part of me apparently still _cares_ what they think!”

Jackie broke down, collapsing into Jan who just pulled her as close as she possibly could.

“Come here, Jackie,” murmured Jan, letting Jackie sob into the crook of her neck. “Of course you care, of course you do. Your heart is so big, baby; it’s why I love you. They don’t deserve you. My brave girl.”

“I’m not,” Jackie bawled. “And my mother used to talk about how she couldn’t wait to see me grown up as a mom, but she doesn’t – I, I guess I’m _not_ a mother to her. This is _not_ motherhood. I’m just _nobody._ ”

Jan reeled away from Jackie then, hands on her tear-stained cheeks, forcing her to make eye contact.

“Jacqueline, honey,” she said softly, firmly, “You are such a good mother.”

Jackie scoffed a little. “I mean, I’m nothing yet, not really.”

She hugged Jackie close, their baby pressed between them. She hated the seemingly innocuous comments people made towards them, implying that there was some sort of disconnect since Jackie wasn’t carrying their baby. It broke her heart every fucking time.

“Don’t ever talk like that,” Jan whispered. “I don’t care what anyone says. He’s ours. Yours and mine.”

Their son wriggled inside her, sensing his mothers’ mutual distress.

“See? He knows you. He loves you. When you walk into a room, or he hears your voice anywhere, he kicks like crazy. You talk to him all the time. He knows you, baby, you’re his mommy. I can’t wait for him to meet you, he's so lucky.”

Jackie gave her a watery smile and pressed her lips to Jan’s. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. "I'm just stressed, I don't know. Better to freak out now than later, I guess." Jackie tried to laugh. 

“Don’t be sorry. I meant what I said, your parents, they don’t deserve to know you. I couldn’t do this without you, Jackie. I _wouldn’t_ do this without you,” said Jan.

“I love you so much.” Jackie kissed her wife gratefully, a tender hand on her belly. She felt like she’d been hit by a truck. “Can we just go lie down?”

Jackie helped Jan to stand, and they walked back to the warmth of their bedroom, sheets unmade. She let Jan get comfortable and propped up with pillows on her side first before joining her on the bed. Jackie curled in close to her, their hands entwined and resting on Jackie’s chest.

”I love you,” Jackie repeated. 

“I love you, too,” said Jan. “So, so much.”

Jan began humming sweetly under her breath to quiet Jackie’s mind; the two of them lay eyes closed, wrapped up in nothing but each other, dreaming of their family.

* * *

It ended on another frigid evening one year later, the early winter wind whistling outside the windows. In Jan and Jackie’s bedroom, it was warm and dusky.

Jackie shook herself awake at four A.M. to the high, lonely sound of her son – her David – crying in the cot beside their bed.

“Shh, shh, shh,” she soothed, lifting him to her chest. “Mommy’s got you, shh.” She’s been sleeping in sports bras since the baby came – she wants to feel his skin on hers as much as possible.

Beside her, Jan was already sat up and grabbing a pillow, undoing her bra. She held her arms out for their son. Jackie passed him carefully - _there we go, there’s Mama_ \- before settling herself between Jan and the headboard. Jan rested against her, muscles relaxing as their son began to nurse. She sighed.

Jackie leaned forward to brush a finger over the silky black hair on David’s head, trailing down to his olive little cheek, his colouring so similar to her own. When they were choosing a donor, Jan was adamant that she wanted their child to look like Jackie; she wanted their child to share her heritage. Jackie hadn’t felt overly particular about it either way, but now, seeing Jan actually cradle their little baby with skin like hers, with a tiny version of Jan’s pointed chin – it meant everything. He was _hers._ He was theirs.

“Oh my _God,_ look at him. It’s honestly unfair to all other babies how gorgeous he is,” Jan whispered.

“We’re not biased, though.” Jackie kept her hand cupping the back of his head.

“Of course we’re not biased. We’re people with eyes.”

Jan twisted her neck around for a kiss, but the angle was awkward since she couldn’t risk jostling her baby. Jackie only caught the corner of her mouth. Their faces were greasy, neither of them had showered in days.

It was perfect.


End file.
